


Sneaking -- Other Side of the Coin

by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, M/M, slices of life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 10:54:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10188353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: Noctis knew how to escape the confines of the Citadel early enough. But he gains a shadow throughout the years.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The other side of Sneaking: Noct's part of the story.

He knew about the drainage ditch in the gardens when he was six— about the long, dark pipes barely covered by the undergrowth against the wall. It was hard to get to, really, he would have to carefully pick his way around the flowers and between the trees, and sometimes in the summer the bushes back against the wall were coarse and spiky. And the long dark draw of mystery beyond the high walls the the strange quiet of the gardens was not something he was prepared to face when he was six. When he was ten, he was bold enough to scrape his way through the muck and the dark and see the park on the other side of the Citadel walls. 

He found that it was easy to slip through the chaos of the kitchens on the monthly delivery day. The big doors were too busy, too bustling, and too watched. But the smaller doors— the little ones that delivered the special things— orders and foods that couldn’t be easily bought in bulk— those were easier to slip through. He found that no one noticed on small boy slipping through the crowd when everyone had a job to do. Except for Ignis. Apparently noticing those things was Ignis’ job. But he was easy to pull out on an adventure down the street to get an ice cream, or to chase frogs in the park, or to watch the fish. 

Gladio was less accommodating. 

He supposed that was because Gladio was capable of picking him up and bringing him back to the safe grounds of the Citadel. 

When he was sixteen, Noct found a way to scale the walls outside of his room. And then the walls outside of the gardens. He practised when he learnt the pattern of the Crownsguard posts and routines. He practised more when he realised that there were a handful of Kingsglaives being assigned to the Citadel walls. He learnt their patterns, and where the walls were rough from centuries of weathering— where the stone crumbled enough for his hands to grip. He learnt where the trees grew strongest to hide his careful struggle up and down the walls.

He didn’t notice the Kingsglaive in the little thicket that pressed up against the outer garden wall until the man was smiling a crooked, wolfish grin up at him. 

“Going somewhere, your highness?”

Noct knew that he had two choices when he was caught. If he went quietly back, then he might be grounded for a few weeks. If it was Clarus who caught him, he’d be in training drills for a month. If he ran, he was faster than most of the Crownsguard. He was nimble and resourceful, and he had some idea now what he was capable of. 

When he was halfway down a wall, with the freedom of the city streets just metres away from him. With the noise and the crowds and the promise of a late night out with Prompto in the arcades and eating food that would have Iggy throwing a fit. And there was just one Kingsglaive in his way. 

Just one. Noct had worked his way around plenty of Crownsguard before. 

When he made the jump to the nearest tree, Noct knew that there was no turning back. 

Gladio had given him a knife to practice with. It wasn’t very sharp, and it wasn’t particularly strong or useful for anything other than practising with, but he had already discovered that he could use it as a focus point for warping. The talent was still new, still raw and unfocused. But he only needed to get a few feet away and start running towards the market crowd. 

He didn’t expect to outrun the Kingsglaive watching him. He didn’t expect to do much more than to slip away in the chaos of the city crowd, where he had learnt on his adventures long ago that he had a knack for hiding in plain sight. 

Noct had, at least, hoped to get further than the few feet he had managed before the Glaive had an arm around him and was pulling him back into the cover of the branches. 

“Woah there, your highness. You’re a quick one.”

“Let me go!”

“Maybe if you tell me where you’re going.”

“I can order you to let me go,” Noct knew he couldn’t. The Glaive knew that he couldn’t. They both knew that, when it came to the chain of command, the Glaives didn’t actually take too many orders from anyone other than the king himself. 

But the Glaive smirked and dropped him the last few feet out of the tree. He put his knife away before dropping down to solid ground himself, looking far too pleased with himself. “Oh, do forgive me, your highness. You ordered me to let you go.”

Noct huffed, pulling himself up to his feet and brushing off the dried leaves and twigs that had caught themselves on his clothes and hair. The Crownsguard weren’t so nearly annoying. Even Gladio and Ignis weren’t so annoying. Most guards would have started the march back to his rooms by now, or straight to his father. This Glaive seemed to be having fun at his expense, and Noct was not going to let the man ruins his plans. He figured if there was no threat to drag him back inside yet, then there wasn’t going to be. 

He mustered up as much princely dignity as he could manage and started towards the street. “I’m going to see a friend.”

The Glaive fell into step beside him; “That so? Does your highness have a problem with doors?”

“Go away.”

“No.”

The Glaive followed him through the few blocks to his usual arcade; the ridiculous uniform barely getting a glance from the citizens moving around them. 

“Won’t you get in trouble for abandoning your post?”

“Won’t you get into trouble for sneaking out, your highness?”

“You’re not telling anyone.”

“Not a word.”

Prompto was already there, camera out, as always, trying to catch the perfect shot of the Moogle mascot for the arcade doing its little twirl on the sign. The camera immediately turned to Noct, and then the shadow the prince had picked up. Noct had never seen Prompto pale so fast in his life. 

“Whoa… Noct, buddy, are we in trouble?”

“No, he followed me.”

The Glaive nodded solemnly; “Like a puppy.”

“He’s leaving now.”

“Don’t think so, your highness.”

Out of everything that had happened so far this night, Noct was surprised that it was the flash of Prompto’s camera that caught the Glaive off guard. 

—

The Glaive was practically a fixture after that. With every attempt Noct made to sneak through the walls and out to the city, the man was there, waiting for him. Once with an umbrella when it was raining. Noct hated him. Hated that, out of everyone in the Citadel, this one Glaive seemed to find him predictable. 

Noct had tried everything. The only way that had gained him a bit of a head start in this little game was actually using the front doors. And even then, the Glaive caught up to him within half a block and just looked so damned smug. Sometimes he was in uniform, others he was in normal clothes, just waiting and watching and smirking that damned wolfish smirk. 

By the time Noct was seventeen, he had stopped telling the Glaive to go away. He had a plan now. 

He had asked for the apartment closer to school over breakfast. He had met his father in his study after dinner, trailed after him in silence while he rehearsed all of his arguments for his own apartment in his head. He had even been ready to negotiate the idea of Prompto being a roommate. Of Ignis being a roommate. He had learnt the right way to present his idea and his argument in class— he had successfully debated the idea of a constitutional monarchy (despite being the current heir to the kingdom, it had garnered him top marks in that class)— he could put the lesson to use now on his own father. 

“Dad—”

“Ignis doesn’t think you should have an apartment.”

Noct scowled, that wasn’t actually one of the points he had prepared for. “But?”

“But there’s a nice place about five blocks away from your school, and on the way to Ignis’ own place.”

“You mean…” Noct paused as he tried to catch up to his dad. As he searched those familiar features for any indication that there was a dramatic catch or something he should be wary of. “You’ll let me get my own place?”

Regis nodded, “So long as you keep good grades, prove that you want to take care of yourself, and don’t go too crazy on your own.”

Noct knew that he should be thanking his father (and he would, as soon as he processed the gift), and he knew that he was going to need to at least appear to have made plans for this. But his first thought was that the Glaive wouldn’t be able to follow him around like a damned shadow anymore.

His second thought was to hug his father (and not think about that slight falter in his father’s step), and beam when he saw the catalogues for the furniture he was going to need to pick out. 

He moved in over the spring break; Prompto helping him him document the whole thing while Gladio dropped boxes in the middle of the living room. Ignis had checked the kitchen first, and made note of the keys before distributing them. And for the first night, they ordered in pizza to celebrate. 

It wasn’t until school started again, and he was stepping out of the front doors, onto the street— without having to climb any walls or scarper through any bushes— that he saw a familiar Glaive with a familiar smirk passing on the street. He was in civilian clothes, a bag slung over one shoulder as he sauntered (who the _hell_ saunters?) down the street. 

“Nice digs, your highness.”

Before Noct could even glare at the man, the Glaive was gone in the crowd. When he asked Ignis for a map of the city later on, he realised that the building was close to the Glaive’s training grounds— the ones nestled up against the massive city wall. 

—

When Noct was eighteen, Gladio suggested that he start training with some magic users. It was difficult to train something you didn’t have, he’d say. Even though Noct had been trying to practice his warping, his fighting, tapping into the elements that ran just below his skin. There was only so much he could learn about control and focus from Ignis and Gladio when neither of them could yield the same sort of power. 

Gladio had spoken to Drautos. 

Two days training with the Glaives, two days with him. At least until school was out, and then the schedule could be revisited. 

As soon as Noct stepped out to the sunny training fields, he saw a familiar smirk, and decided then and there that he was going to kill Gladio. 

—

The city was huge. Noct could only see the sea of lights from his apartment at night; how the city and its wall shimmered and sparkled and promised him so much more adventure. The Citadel glowed the brightest of all— the shimmer of the Crystal beckoning him home each time his father asked. But the city… 

The city was practically a siren’s call. He knew that he had only seen a fraction of it. Barely that. He had only seen the Citadel, and his schools, and Prompto’s neighbourhood. He had seen snippets here and there— passed through the quiet districts, the soft districts. 

Gladio lived in a large house, with his sister and family. He had a yard and family area, his own room and Iris ran like a made woman through the house when he visited. Ignis had an apartment about the same size as his own, not that he ever seemed to go there; Noct knew that the kitchen was part library and part science lab, where Ignis would experiment and test and bring his creations over in carefully packed boxes. Prompto had a neighbourhood that looked like it was on one of the dumb shows they would watch after school and before studying, where everyone was happy and nothing ever went wrong— with narrow, brightly lit alleys and stray cats that walked the edge of fences. 

It had taken almost a year for Noct to make his way to the Galahdian district. He didn’t really know if that’s what it was, officially. But he had spent months before his nineteenth birthday testing just how far he could disappear into the city before Clarus and Gladio would be on him. 

He had wandered the streets aimlessly, stopped at new food stalls in the middle of the night. Peeked inside shops he never knew existed right before closing. He walked through parks and across the bridges, learnt which buses went where, and which train to take after midnight. He found bookstore that he would lead Iggy to one day, and a poster shop that was perfect for Prompto. There was a whole shop dedicated to Cup Noodles he would bring Gladio to, one day. 

But it took a year to really get so far into the depth of the city— so lost in the twisting streets and strange layers of life around him— that he could no longer see the glow of the Citadel or the shimmer of the wall. That he barely saw the statues of the Old Wall standing their guard, and he wondered if the depths of the city would swallow him whole. 

He hadn’t realised just how far he had gone— how deep he had wandered— until he looked up and recognised nothing. There were people everywhere. Lights everywhere. Steam from shops and stalls and music and shouts and _life_ everywhere. Everything was bright, and colourful, and seemed like there was always a festival down the market streets.

But he was lost, and he remembered coming down some steps, through an archway, but there was no train station, no bus, no sign that he could see in a language that he could read.

Noct nearly panicked when he felt a strong hand on his arm, leading him away from the street. 

He glared at the Glaive on instinct now, immune to the smirk. Immune to the look of smig satisfaction and perpetual amusement at his expense.

“You’re far from home, your highness.” He had learnt the Glaive was called Nyx, and he was allegedly some sort of hero; “Well past your bedtime.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I live here,” Nyx was leading him towards a little open stall nestled against a platform— a patio built around it. “Well, not _here_ here, but you’re on my street. Finally miss me?”

“No!”

“Too bad.”

He found out that Nyx and his friends were refugees. He supposed the idea had always been there— that if they were from Galahd, they didn’t have a home anymore. That if they were in the Kingsglaive, they were recruited from somewhere that no one else had thought to look. He found out that Crowe was fearless and a talented mage. He found out that Pelna was kind, and liked to buy him whatever was on the menu that night at whatever little dive they decided to meet at. He found out that Libertus was protective, and steadfast, and could actually tease Nyx with embarrassing stories of an ill spent youth.

Noct found that one of them had put their numbers in his phone. That they would text him an address or a cross street with a picture of whatever food they were getting that night. That Crowe would drive him home in the morning on the back of her bike, and leave Noct breathless with the rush of zipping through the streets like that— it was almost like warping. 

Libertus liked to see him smile and laugh. Pelna liked to water down the drinks they bought for him. 

None of them treated him like a prince. None of them shied away when he checked in at midnight with Gladio or Ignis, or sent off texts to his father. None of them balked when he shared his own stories the same way they shared theirs. 

And Nyx… Nyx still smirked, and laughed, and teased. He threw an arm around Noct’s shoulders when he laughed and ran through lists of pet names that made Noct blush. He walked Noct home, and draped his jacket over the prince when it was a colder night than expected.

Nyx sent him a picture on his nineteenth birthday— in the middle of dinner with his father. It was of a plate of whatever mess of Galahdian food they had picked for the evening and the promise of a gift later.

It was Crowe’s idea to have one of them keep an eye on him, officially. It was Pelna who helped him shape the argument if his father voiced concern. 

It was Nyx who suggested it be used as a punishment duty (it was Libertus who punched Nyx for suggesting that Noct was boring). 

After dinner, on his nineteenth birthday, Noct didn’t need to slip out of his apartment and onto the street. He didn’t need to find the late trains (he never drove through to the Glaives, it would draw too much attention), or warp himself down familiar streets because he was too restless to walk.

Just when he was buzzing with the excitement and promise of another late night. After he had spent the day beating Prompto’s high scores and getting his own beaten in revenge; after Gladio and Ignis had surprised him with a cake at lunch and a ride out to the wall to watch where the creatures skirted the edges of the barrier in the fields. After a day of playing and arguing and chasing his old friends around while they debated the taste of Ebony and fought over the last piece of cake, Noct was almost ready to rush out to share his excitement with his new friends. 

He was ready to tell Crowe all about the magic he and Ignis were working on— the theory and the use and the way he was learning to feed his magic into the elements his friends could use. He was ready to tell Libertus and Pelna about the cake and the games and the way they still chased after each other like kids. 

He was ready to tell Nyx… He wasn’t ready for Nyx. Not ready for that smirk, that look of amusement, the way Nyx paid attention to him, learnt every word he said. He wasn’t ready for the attention he didn’t know how to return yet. 

He was still buzzing, still electric, still _ready_ when Nyx knocked on his door. When Nyx stepped in with a box and a card from everyone and a teasing remark that no one knew what to get a damned prince for a birthday, but they all knew what to get a friend. 

The kukri was marked by a Galahdian forge, with some designs Noct hadn’t learnt yet. 

He expect Nyx to tease him for staring at the blade, for testing it, for feeling its weight and treating it like something almost sacred. He expected Nyx to be _Nyx_ — to smirk and play and treat him like a little brother. 

He didn’t expect Nyx to still his hand as he tested the blade, to mutter a happy birthday before a kiss. 

Noct didn’t expect the kiss. Not the chaste little peck, or the look of concern that followed, the awkward moment as Nyx waited for a sentence to be passed. 

Noct didn’t expect to drop the kukri in his surprise. Or for his brain to short out the way it did.

“Nyx…”

“Sorry.”

That was it. That stirred him back to where he was meant to be, reminded him who he was with and what words should never pass that wolfish grin. 

“Out of everything you have ever done to me, you apologise for _that_?” Noct huffed, almost indignant. Almost. “You’re an idiot.”

There was that grin, that laugh, that relief. And Nyx ruffled his hair before pulling him close again. “Whatever you say, your highness.”


End file.
